Global Voices Online

Brasov fire department ignores a minor fire, local residents have to cope on their own, Romerican reports: “Without the help of paid city officials, they began dismantling burning objects from the fire with their bare hands and rolling each hot item in the dirt until the flames subsided. Then, they’d return again and again to repeat the process. Ironically smoking cigarettes all the while.”

Recent Links also in Eastern & Central Europe

The Web site of a popular Russian tabloid “Moskovsky Komsomolets” [RUS] lost all of its online data due to the recent hacker attack, radio “Ekho Moskvy” reports [RUS].

Belgraded reports that, beginning Dec. 19, “there will be no more visa requirement for Serbian, Montenegrin and Macedonian citizens if they want to travel to the Schengen territory” - debunks “some visa-free travel myths.” Jana Orsolic thinks “it's too good to be truth” and shares some of her feelings: “…there's no room for silly excuses for something being done badly because of poor us being isolated.”

A few last month's updates at IZO: artist and writer Vagrich Bakhchanyan dies in NYC; Ukrainian artist Aleksandr Gnilitsky dies in Kyiv; a Ukrainian Euro-2012 icon.